Customers dealing with the retail giant Walmart feel like David against Goliath.

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Walmart customer service employees have admitted that there has been some sort of security breach or fraud at the Walmart.com website, but a media representative for the retail giant has denied it. After multiple contacts and escalations, Walmart refuses to provide assistance to victims. Three separate customer service employees confirmed to the Knoxville Social Media Examiner that a security breach had resulted in the fraudulent access to Walmart gift card funds which were stored on Walmart.com. The company encourages customers to store their gift cards there for easy access when ordering from the website. Customer service explained that hackers have figured out a way to get information from the website.

Having personally had a large amount of money stolen from a Walmart gift card stored on the site, multiple phone calls have been made to attempt some type of restitution for the site security breach which caused the loss. This particular gift card was still in hand, never having left the premises in Tennessee when it was accessed on Walmart.com and used at a California Walmart store! There was no notice issued of the misuse of funds, and it was not apparent until recently shopping on Walmart.com and attempting to use the stored card in question.

Calls to Walmart customer service and Walmart.com customer service were quite a waste of time. After literally being thrown from one department and customer service agent to another while being told various stories, it was finally decided that a refund was being issued due to website fraud. More than one employee agreed wholeheartedly that a fraud had occurred on the Walmart.com website.

Yet, no balance was restored. They made it clear in the end that you, the customer, are on your own because gift cards are like money. When they are spent, they are gone. Walmart considers any web piracy that occurs on their website as your security breach, not theirs.

The entire customer service experience was horrific, and there was not even the promised contact to further inquire about the situation or inform of any decisions. At least 12-14 agents were involved resulting in at least 12-14 stories.

The only recourse left to a customer is to file a complaint with Walmart's Global Ethics department. They are available at 1-800-WM-Ethic. You can also access their help online here. This places you in contact with a third-party entity, employed by Walmart, to receive ethics complaints from customers and employees. It is basically the only person customers can speak to who can actually send the information to someone who can help, but it did not result in any assistance at all.

So, it is probably prudent to avoid purchasing Walmart gift cards at all until they can assure their legitimacy. Users should definitely avoid storing them on the Walmart.com website. It is important to check your gift card balances if you have stored cards there.

One Walmart customer service employee said he couldn't explain how the hacking is being done, but it's being done. It must be said that a cautious user would realize that if stored gift card balances are being fraudulently accessed, then other personal account information could possibly be compromised, too. You should also remove your stored credit card information from the site.

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Barbie Crafts enjoys pursuing her freelance career by writing on a variety of topics here at the Examiner. She has also been published on Associated Content, Demand Media, Triond, and Crafts 'n Things magazine.